As a follow-up to my fog rant earlier today, I thought I’d post a poll to see what type of weather is your least favorite. Does the heat burn you up? Do you cuss the wind? Does the snow leave you with cold feet? Let us know what kind of weather gets your goat (feel free to choose more than one).

Good question. We discussed the topic here at home (we’re all year round cyclists now, yay!) and…

initially we all said sleet/hail.

The reality is that none of us are willing to risk hail and would take shelter. Plus sleet is really crappy for the two of us with glasses.

Then we all discussed how we don’t mind sleet if it comes straight down, or rain if it comes straight down… or heat if it isn’t windy, etc. So we were going to vote that wind added to any of the above and it becomes a condition we try to avoid. Aka, put off to tomorrow that we don’t *have* to do today!

We choose to vote for the sleet/hail because we’d pull off the road and just not go out in that but… wind was a close second. Wind makes us all grit our teeth and causes the most consternation, but we keep peddling! So you can count the 1 vote as 4…

In the spring of last year I made it my goal to commute to work by bike through the summer as much as possible. I’d say my average was 3 days a week, close to 4. My new goal, which coincidentally comes with the new year, is to ride to work 3 days a week. 2 of those days 13 miles will be added on to the already 34 mile round trip that is work. I’m going back to school.

With only a handful of winter days under my belt I can easily say I will take the heat over the cold.Any.Day.

You forgot about lightning. Warmed up here New Years Eve morning and I went for a ride in what started out as a nice foggy drizzle, wound up riding home in a downpour with thunder and lightning crashing all around me. Scary stuff.

I will ride with pleasure through wind, fog, blistering heat or any type of precipitation (although, honestly, I’ve never ridden through sleet or hail, which could be painful), but cold weather riding is what I enjoy the least.

wind is not so bad when it blows from behind you, as it often does in the evenings on my ride home from work. Therefore, I also settled on Sleet/Hail as my #1 dislike. ice pellets bouncing off your cheeks, that is really less than fun. it’s nature’s exfoliator.

My biggest complaint is cold and wet, which pretty much fills all the requirements for sleet. Hail I have ridden in but I got out of it as soon as possible because of the pain factor. I have done snow as well and to be honest as long as it’s new snow and I’m rocking knobbies on the bike I can hang with snow (MTB BSO are the best thing for riding snow, you don’t feel bad about messing up the bike when you fall and the somewhat big knobbies mean you don’t fall as much). Nowadays I ride crank forward bikes that I can get both feet down in a hurry when needed so the knobbies/studded tires don’t get hauled out much.

Heat. I’m a California Bay Area resident & the winter doesn’t get that bad for my bike-to-BART commute.I can put on scarves & gloves & rain gear. I am a wimp in what passes for hot weather around here. Hills are always higher when it is hot!

Where I live, the enemy is wind: we live 10 miles from town on a narrow harbour, and the wind is always blowing one way or the other–usually the other–along our road. I guess I should resign myself to this, but I’m still not there yet. Windstill days are a real boon.

Rain sucks when you have to ride in traffic, but at least you can deploy raingear and lights. So although I don’t choose to go out on my bike in a downpour, I don’t mind rain as much as a screeching headwind.

You forgot freezing rain, probably because you folks in NoCal aren’t blessed with it! THAT is the worse, and it keeps me off the road, not so much because I’m afraid for my bike’s and my inability to cope, but because drivers and cars can’t.

Wind just makes me work harder. Not a huge issue unless I’m doing a touring century.
Sleet/Hail are two very different things. Sleet is obnoxious and annoying. Being both cold and wet is never fun. Hail is so infrequent and so quick that it’s not an issue – just find some cover and 2 minutes later it’s over.
Rain can get annoying if it’s for a long time riding, otherwise just don the wet gear and ride.
I ride up to about 90F heat in NY summers. It’s hard to stay hydrated and feeling good above that.
Snow is just slow going.
Cold is easily cured by riding uphill. I sweat much more in winter.
Fog could be the worst depending on how dense it is.

I had a fascinating ride home in a “freezing drizzle” a week or two ago. Tiny droplets of water surrounded by a thin shell of ice. Some simply rolled off, but many broke open, spread liquid water, and froze. Within ten minutes, I was coated with a layer of ice – raingear, helmet, and glasses were all glazed. Fortunately my homebound commute is downhill, fast, and only takes ten minutes! That was an adventure, but it wasn’t terrible.

What I really dread is a heavy rain. My raingear is simply not up to the task. Upgrading is one of my goals for the spring. (And I’d welcome pointers to good reviews of maximally breathable and protective gear!).

Love my Schwalbe Winter studs — they make snow/ice almost benign. I must say, riding in the snow is so much fun that I don’t notice how much slower it is. Hate wind, because home is upwind + three steep hills, and I’m usually loaded with groceries, birdseed, cat food, etc.

Steady drizzle because it’s unavoidable at least here in SW Scotland. Once it starts raining like that you know it’s going to go on ALL DAY. Wind at least you (mostly) get back on the swings what you lost on the roundabouts – a headwind might be unpleasant, but a nice stiff tailwind on a downhill stretch is a joy indeed